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First episode on crime of passion drops on Valentine's Day

The second season of The Star’s local history podcast “Never 30” kicks off Wednesday on Valentine’s Day with an episode about an infamous crime of passion in Ventura County.

In the first episode of this second season, death and love become an explosive combination. In a twisted story that’s still intriguing nearly 60 years later, two members of a cult headquartered in Box Canyon, near Simi Valley, become disenchanted when they think the cult leader is sleeping with their wives. They blow up the compound using 20 sticks of dynamite. As one investigator said at the time, “One stick would have been enough.”

A new podcast will drop every Wednesday for the next eight weeks. After “A Crime of Passion,” future episodes will talk about Tortilla Flats in Ventura and the old Mira Loma Flight Academy in Oxnard that trained thousands of pilots to fly in World War II. The story of the St. Francis Dam disaster will drop on March 7, just a few days before the 90th anniversary of the event that killed hundreds as water and mud flowed through Piru, Fillmore, Santa Paula, Saticoy and Ventura.

The last four episodes of Season 2 will discuss Simi Valley’s Bottle Village, the Camarillo White Horses, the mystique of Ojai and how the sugar beet industry, now nearly extinct in Ventura County, turned a fledgling city of Oxnard into an agricultural powerhouse.

You’ll find “Never 30” on vcstar.com and wherever you get your podcasts. Let us know what you think by filling out our survey or emailing our host, Andrea Howry, and technical director, Anthony Plascencia, at never30@vcstar.com.

Check out our popular first season, which included episodes on Wagon Wheel, Egg City, Growing Up in the Great Depression, La Jenelle, Circles in the Sand, Ghost Stories, Summer of Love and Jungleland.